KFS Managing Director Bakari Gowa (pictured) and Engineer Peter Mathenge told a parliamentary committee on Tuesday the three vessels were deregistered in 2007/FILE – COURTESY
NAIROBI, Kenya, Oct 29 – Kenya Ferry Services (KFS) has now acknowledged three of its six ferries – MV Harambee, MV Nyayo, MV Kilindini – were struck off the Lloyd’s Register, an international maritime classification society roll.
KFS Managing Director Bakari Gowa and Engineer Peter Mathenge told a Parliament’s Public Investment Committee on Tuesday the three vessels were deregistered in 2007.
They conceded that KFS was aware of the de-registration but instead got certification for the obsolete ferries from the Kenya Maritime Authority (KMA).
It also emerged the maintenance of the ferries was costing the taxpayers thrice as much compared to maintaining vessels within the recommended 20-year service ceiling.
The safety of safety operations came under scrutiny after a 35-year-old mother – Mariam Kigenda – and her 4-year-old daughter, Amanda Mutheu, drowned at the Likoni ferry channel on September 30. Their vehicle slid off a ferry midstream, whose ramps were not fully retracted.
MV Harambee, on which mother and daughter were travelling on, was decommissioned in 2015, only to resume operations a year later after a patch-up repair job
costing some Sh143 million.
KFS Head of Procurement Jenifer Sirindi explained that none of the required engine overhauls aimed at improving the ferry services was ever done. Instead, all that the ferries got was patch-up repair work due to lack of resources.
The other two ferries, MV Pwani and MV Mvita, which are 50 and 45 years-old respectively, are also said to be unseaworthy and do not appear on any classification body’s register.
The KFS management led by Gowa said KFS expenditure in the last financial year rose by 15 per cent to Sh1.2 billion from Sh1.1 billion in 2017.
Gowa denied claims that the second-hand vessels, which are some of Kenya’s oldest ferries operating with rusty ramps dangling in water, do not have a safety mechanism, contravening International Safety Management (ISM) regulations, which require all vessels to be seaworthy and dry-dock after 8,500 hours of operations.
MPs questioned the managers as why only one company – Africa Marine – has been contracted to do the maintenance and repairs of KFS’s 6 vessels.
MPs Gladys Wanga, Paul Katana and Committee Vice Chairperson Abdisalan Ibrahim voiced their concerns on the raising repair costs, for instance, have shot from an average of Sh30 million to Sh100 million.
Sirindi and acting KFS head of engineering Peter Mathenge explained that Africa Marine is the only firm that operates a 70 feet dry dock that can handle the vessels.
PIC Chairperson Abdullswamad Nassir invited the management of the Kenya Maritime Authority (KMA), which is mandated to license vessels to operate in the Kenyan waters, after it was put on the spot for not doing its work as required, putting more than 300,000 commuters and motorists who use Likoni channel daily at risk.
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